Glory days February 97

1/31	Steve and Michelle Stern arrive in Mazatlan. They stay at Michelle's parents home nearby. It's Michelle's birthday, and we all go out to celebrate.
2/1	Too much partying last night! Lazy day today.
2/2	We take Steve, Michelle and parents sailing. The wind and sun are perfect and we have great day.
2/3	We walk around the old section of town and see some restoration of the colonial buildings. We also shop at the open-air fish, meat and produce markets.
2/4	We take a bus tour of some new and old homes in Mazatlan.
2/5	We make a great Mexican breakfast from the goodies we bought at the market on Monday. We take the dinghy and explore the estuary waters. We see lots of birds and several jumping fish.
2/6	We borrow Michelle's parents' car and drive up into the Sierra Madre mountains. This gives us a chance to see life outside the city.
2/7	All over town there are posters advertising the Carnival (Mardi Gras) events. Mazatlan's carnival is the third largest in the world. ( Rio is number one, New Orleans is two.) We take the bus into the downtown area in the evening so we may join the Carnival activities. For about two miles along the waterfront the street is blocked off and there is a bandstand set up and vendors selling masks, confetti, and food.
2/8	We have breakfast with Steve and Michelle at a small restaurant overlooking the ocean, then wish them farewell. They fly home to the San Francisco Bay area. In the evening, Brenda goes to town again with some other cruisers. There is dancing in the streets, and a big fireworks display.
2/9	Carnival continues. We join about fifty other cruisers for a buffet dinner at a local hotel. Chairs are set up on a large balcony and this gives us a great vantage spot for the parade, which includes float after float of beauty queens. The parade continues until midnight. There is confetti everywhere including in our hair and our clothes.
2/10	We spend the day getting ready to leave, including grocery shopping, filling up with diesel, etc. At l0:45 PM we set sail for Isla Isabella, approximately sixteen hours away. We want to arrive in the daylight.
2/11	Disappointing wind. We find it necessary to motor most of the day. We have the anchor set by 5 PM. in the remnants of a volcanic cone. The south side of the caldera is broken and now full of ocean water. We have breathtaking views of contorted rock formations.
2/12	Lazy day. We lean back on the cockpit pillows and read our books.
2/13	Isla Isabella is home to millions (literally) of birds. Every tree houses at least five permanent nests and the sky is alive with swooping birds. We take the dinghy to shore and hike along the slopes. We see male frigates boldly displaying their bright red pouches, and nests of young boobies, gulls, terns, cormorants. We sure wish we had packed a bird identification book on Glory Days.
2/14	At 7:15am we set sail for San Blas. We have 5-15 knots of wind and able to sail all the way. By 3:00 PM we are anchored in Metanchen Bay. The weather and landscape change is noticeable. Finally we are in the tropics! Palm trees and 80 degrees.
2/15	It's about a 20 minute dinghy ride to town. Since we left for town during the daylight hours we forgot to turn on our mast light as we depart for dinner. This proves to be an interesting event because in the dark we can't find our boat! After 45 minutes of zig-zagging across the bay we just miss getting fouled in a fisherman's net. When the fisherman motors over to see what's going on , we ask him in our broken Spanish if he knows the location of our yacht. "Si" is the answer and he points in the right direction. Embarrassing!
2/16	Three other sail boats arrive in the bay today. We all get together and have a potluck dinner.
2/17	We dinghy into town and buy three kilos of shrimp and a red snapper from the local fishermen. We have a nice fish dinner and star gaze over coffee and brownies. Too bad we forgot to pack an astronomy book on Glory Days. Rod works on the generator for the 200th hour in effort to fix the hard starting problem. At last, he figures that a small excess flow valve in the lift pump must be stuck open which would prevent the injector from getting fuel right away. He fixes it and it works. What a reason to celebrate!
2/18	Rod is very ill, his fever rises to almost 105. Is the cause the red snapper? It looked fresh. Brenda's stomach is in knots and we both have diarrhea; maybe it's tourista.
2/19	Rod's fever broke in the night. Although we're both not feeling well we pull anchor and set sail at l:00pm for Chacala. We have friends arriving in Puerto Vallarta in a few days so we can't linger here. It's only a five hour sail and the wind is blowing 10 knots. We arrive just before sunset and have time to drop both a bow and stern anchor to keep us from rockin' and rolling in the big surge.
2/20	We are underway by 7:30am on our way to Puerto Vallarta. About nine hours later we are tied to a slip in Marina Vallarta.
2/21	Rod catches the bus and goes to the Port Captain's office and clears customs. He comes back irritated with the Port Officials. They charge an overtime fee of 81 pesos to those vessels who enter the PV area out of the official port office hours of 9am to 2 PM. No overtime effort has been expended by the port authorities, they just charge the overtime charge as a fine because they can. I guess you could call it a tax for entry but their law doesn't provide for that. Brenda takes the laundry in and goes to the pharmacy to get some antibiotics for the tourista that is still lingering in our bowels and stomach.
2/22	We clean the boat and prepare for our friends arrival. Pete and Marsha Aller fly in at 5:00pm.
2/23	All four of us take the bus to old town Puerto Vallarta and walk on cobblestone streets, view the church built in l939 with it's crown-like top and in general act like tourists.
2/24	We work on boat projects today. Pete and Rod get the CD player and cassette player installed. After four months at sea we have music!
2/25	We sail to La Cruz in about one hour and drop anchor. The water is too opaque to be good snorkeling but Brenda did see 2 sea snakes. After dinner on the boat, we sit in the cockpit and talk and look at the wonders of Mother Nature. Most interesting are the phosphorescent streaks we see in the water. We guess they are dolphins.
2/26	We sail to Las Tres Marietas islands, with the plan to snorkel in crystal clear water, but to our disappointment, there is heavy surge and breaking waves and after a brief stop we decide to continue on to Punta Mita.
2/27	We start our day with a dinghy ride to shore for breakfast. We eat with our toes in the soft white sand. Later we sail across Banderas Bay, about 16 miles to Yelapa. We attempt to take the dinghy to shore for dinner, but in the breaking waves, Brenda falls in the water and we all get wet. Luckily we kept the motor dry so we are able to motor back to Glory Days and make our own tacos. Much better!!!
2/28	After a breakfast, Marsha and Pete go to shore to buy pies from the local pie lady. Then back into the dingy for another try at the village. This time, in the sunlight and with practice, we make it without disaster. We hike through the village and up the hillside to see the waterfall. Later we lunch on the Yelapa beach at the local taco bar then return to the boat for a rousing game of Dominos and dinner.
3/1	Pull anchor at 10:30 am and head for Mismaloya and Los Arcos for another day of fun in the sun. This beach claims notoriety because the movie "Night of the Iguana" was filmed here. I haven't seen it either so don't feel alone. Finally we have some good snorkeling at Los Arcos but the water is cold and after 30 minutes we have had our fill. We dropped 150' of anchor chain here and in the process of pulling up all this weight the electric windlass motor burns up. Great! Another problem. Rod is clever and rigs some extra line through blocks and uses one of the large winches to pull up the remaining 75' of chain . We head back to Puerto Vallarta; Pete and Marsha must fly home to Vancouver, WA tomorrow.
3/2	We've had a nice visit with Pete and Marsha, which included a lot of sailing. Because the windlass is broken, we will alter our plans and stay here, tied up to the marina dock in Puerto Vallarta while we determine what we must do; buy a new motor locally, import one,.have this one rebuilt, etc.